Or better known as my very first podcast. Yours truly participated in a round-table discussion with three other journalists of what to expect at the Farnborough Air Show. Take a listen, critiques welcome.
Fellow podcasters were Steve Trimble, writer at blogger for Flight, Colin Clark, reporter and blogger for Military.com and DoDBuzz.com, with Christian Lowe of Military.com and DefenseTech.com moderating.
-- Bob Cox
A new generation of Bell Helicopter leaders has taken a more realistic and pragmatic view of the real world potential for the company's tilt-rotor technology embodied in the vaunted V-22 Osprey.
A story in today's Star-Telegram reveals that Bell management doubts there is much of a market in the civil/commercial aviation world for the BA609 civil titlt-rotor aircraft the company has spent more than decade and hundreds of millions of dollars developing.
--Bob Cox
POGO Jet, the Massachusetts based charter/air taxi startup headed by former American Airlines boss Robert Crandall, has postponed plans to begin an initial public stock offering.
POGO had planned to raise up to $115 million this week by selling 7 million shares at an expected price of $12.50 to $16.50 a share. The company said Monday it had postponed the offering due to the turbulence in the financial markets.
Based in Chicopee, Mass. POGO aims to offer travelers convenient and close-to-home air service beginning in mid-2009. The company is planning to buy a fleet of Eclipse very light jets.
Links located here to POGO's public filing documents.
- Bob Cox
Private aircraft flying into Texas from foreign countries will soon have another point where they can make a first stop required by government regulations. According to the San Antonio News-Express, the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection will designate San Antonio International Airport permanently as an "airport of first landing" for private aircraft.
- Bob Cox
Dallas-based Bombardier Flexjet, the fractional business jet ownership program of Bombardier Aerospace, has redrawn the lines of its secondary service area to include all of Central America and Canada.
The expansion will allow Flexjet fractional aircraft owners to travel to and from any location within Central America and Canada without incurring ferry (or repositioning) fees that are normally charged to cover the cost of repositioning an aircraft back to the U.S.
Flexjet says it is the first fractional business jet ownership service to remove its re-marketing fees, which cover the maintenance and administration costs needed to place a jet back into inventory after the conclusion of a contract, typically constitute as much as four to seven percent of the fair market value of the jet.
- Bob Cox
Textron Inc., parent company of Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter and Cessna Aircraft Co., reported a fourth quarter 2007 profit of $1 per share, a 32 percent increase over 2006.
Both Cessna and Bell, Textron's two largest subsidiaries, reported solid revenue and profit gains for the quarter.
Textron's fourth quarter profits totaled $256 million, up from $195 million a year ago. Revenues for the quarter were $3.76 billion, 17 percent higher than $3.2 billion in 2006.
For the full year, Textron reported profits of $917 million, or $3.60 a share, on revenues of $13.2 billion.
Textron's Bell segment, which includes Bell Helicopter and several smaller businesses, had an operating profit of $84 million in the quarter, a 75 percent improvement from a year earlier, on revenues of $1.1 billion, which were up 12 percent.
Textron officials said they expected an even stronger performance in 2008 because of strong orders for commercial and military aircraft and helicopters, but the company's forecast was below Wall Street's expectations.
The conglomerate predicted full-year earnings between $3.75 and $3.95 per share on sales of approximately $15 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial predict net income of $4.03 per share on revenue of $14.76 billion.
Textron projected a first-quarter profit between 75 cents and 85 cents per share, vs. consensus analyst estimates of 92 cents.
The year-end order backlog at Bell increased 23 percent to $3.8 billion. Cessna's order backlog was $12.6 billion, a whopping 48 percent increase.
The company said its 2008 forecasts include costs for development of a new, large cabin Citation business jet model which it has launched.
- Bob
Cessna Aircraft Co. formally announced today it will proceed with development of a new, larger cabin intercontinental Citation business jet.
Cessna, based in Wichita, Kan. is the worlds largest maker of small to mid-size business jets. But the company's product line did not include an aircraft with a larger, wider passenger cabin like those introduced in the last few years by several of its competitors.
Cessna unveiled a mockup for the larger jet during the 2006 National Business Aviation Association conference. Since then, company officials have taken the mockup to events worldwide.
Cessna is a subsidiary of Textron Inc., which is also the parent of Bell Helicopter.
- Bob
